A Companion to Yi jing Numerology and Cosmology

Bent Nielsen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN:
  9780700716081
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136602689
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Translations of the Yi jing into western languages have been biased towards the yili ('meaning and pattern') tradition, whereas studies of the xiangshu ('image and number') tradition - which takes as its point of departure the imagery and numerology associated with divination and its hexagrams, trigrams, lines, and related charts and diagrams - has remained relatively unexplored. This major new reference work is organised as a Chinese-English encyclopedia, arranged alphabetically according to the pinyin romanisation, with Chinese characters appended. A character index as well as an English index is included. The entries are of two kinds: technical terms and various other concepts related to the 'image and number' tradition, and bio-bibliographical information on Chinese Yi jing scholars. Each entry in the former category has a brief explanation that includes references to the origins of the term, cross-references, and a reference to an entry giving a more comprehensive treatment of the subject.

A Companion to Yi Jing Numerology and Cosmology

ANDING XIANSHENG 安定先生 – see HU YUAN.

BA

. The numeral 8.

1. Acc. to XI CI 1.10, the numeral 8 is one of the numbers of the earth: 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10. see TIAN DI ZHI SHU.

2. The number that completes the agent wood, see WU XING and SHENG CHENG.

3. he number associated with an unmoving yin line—also known as ‘the lesser (or young) yin’ (少陰). see SI XIANG, def. 1.

BA BA

. Lit. ‘8 [multiplied by] 8’, used to refer to the 64 hexagrams in some of The Apocrypha of the Changes 易緯 (see YI WEI), notably the QIAN KUN ZUO DU [YJJC 158:17] and the BIAN ZHONG BEI [YJJC 160:5]

BA CHUN GUA

純卦. The eight pure (unmixed) hexagrams. The eight hexagrams that are composed of two identical trigrams: QIAN [1]

, ZHEN [51]

, KAN [29]

, GEN [52]

, KUN [2]

, XUN [57]

, LI [30]

, and DUI [58]

. see BA GONG GUA.

BA GONG

宮. The eight palaces; abbr. of BA GONG GUA.

BA GONG GUA

宮卦. The hexagrams of the eight palaces. This arrangement, attrib. to JING FANG (77-37 BCE), divides the 64 hexagrams into 8 groups each headed by one of ‘the eight pure hexagrams’ (八純卦), i.e. QIAN [1]

, ZHEN [51]

, KAN [29]

, GEN [52]

, KUN [2]

, XUN [57]

, LI [30]

, and DUI [58]

. The pure hexagram in each group is called ‘the upper generation’ (上世), also known as ‘the palace hexagram’ (宮卦) or ‘the original palace hexagram’ (本宮卦). The remaining 7 hexagrams in a group are derived from that hexagram, e.g. when the 1st (bottom) line of QIAN [1]

changes, it becomes ‘the 1st generation’ (—世). When the 1st and 2nd lines change, it becomes ‘the 2nd generation’ (二世). When the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd lines change, it becomes ‘the 3rd generation’ (三世), and so on, until ‘the 5th generation’ (五世). If all six lines were to change, QIAN [1]

would turn into KUN [2]

, which is one of the pure hexagrams heading its own group. Therefore, the 4th line of the hexagram of the 5th generation changes, and it becomes ‘the roaming soul’ (溝魂). When all the lines of the lower trigram of the hexagram of the roaming soul change, it becomes ‘the returning soul’ (蹄魂), see ex. in table 1. The term ‘roaming soul’ probably stems from XI CI 1.4: “The essence and the vital material force constitute the beings; the roaming souls constitute the alternations” (精氣馬物瀞魂馬愛).

Table 1
Qian’s Palace 乾宮

The arrangement of the hexagrams of the eight palaces has its own unique set of ‘hexagram rulers’ (卦主, see GUA ZHU), now commonly referred to as ‘the generation lines’ (世交), but Jing Fang uses a variety of terms such as ‘the residing generations’ (居世), ‘the approaching generations’ (臨世), ‘the governing generations’ (治世) or, simply, ‘the generations’ (世) [YJJC 177:5, 10, 12, 90]. A hexagram ruler is a line in a hexagram that is believed to embody the significance of the entire hexagram and therefore merits special attention. Furthermore, the generation lines have ‘corresponding’ (鷹) lines, i.e. if the generation line is located in the lower trigram, the corresponding line is in the corresponding position in the upper trigram and vice versa (see YING), see e.g. Jing Fang’s comm. on TONG REN [13]

, which is ‘the returning soul’ of ‘LI’s [30]

palace’ [YJJC 177:90]: “The returning soul sets up ‘the three dukes’ (i.e. the 3rd line) as the generation [line], and the upper nine in ‘the ancestral shrine’ (i.e. the upper line) is the corresponding [line]” (蹄魂立三公馬世上九宗廟馬慮). Cf. table 1. For the expressions ‘three dukes’ and ‘ancestral shrine’ used as references to hexagram lines, see YAO XIANG.

Table 2 (p. 3) presents the distribution of the 64 ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Plates
• Common Abbreviations
• Conventions
• Introduction
• A Companion to Yi Jing Numerology and Cosmology
• Selected Bibliography
• Index of Common English Translations of the Hexagram Names
• Index of Chinese Works